{"id":13740,"date":"2018-06-12T20:55:20","date_gmt":"2018-06-12T12:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/japanese-intelligence-gathering-satellite-successfully-launched\/"},"modified":"2018-06-12T20:55:20","modified_gmt":"2018-06-12T12:55:20","slug":"japanese-intelligence-gathering-satellite-successfully-launched","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/japanese-intelligence-gathering-satellite-successfully-launched\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese intelligence-gathering satellite successfully launched"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\" data-twitter-extracted-i1782698837073432357=\"true\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"ja\">\u3068\u308a\u3042\u3048\u305a\u30b5\u30d6\u30ab\u30e1\u30e9\u306e\u6620\u50cf\u304b\u3089\u3002H-IIA F39\u6253\u3061\u4e0a\u3052\u3002 pic.twitter.com\/JBbj5M66tS<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 \u67f4\u7530\u5b54\u660e (@koumeiShibata) June 12, 2018<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><script async=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>An all-weather spy satellite for the Japanese government launched Tuesday on top of an H-2A rocket, extending the country\u2019s surveillance reach with coverage of North Korea and other strategic locations worldwide.<\/p>\n<p>The radar-equipped reconnaissance craft lifted off at 0420 GMT (12:20 a.m. EDT) Tuesday from the Tanegashima Space Center, Japan\u2019s primary launch base, located on an island in the southern part of the country.<\/p>\n<p>Liftoff occurred at 1:20 p.m. Japan Standard Time, marking the 39th launch of an H-2A rocket, and the second H-2A launch of the year.<\/p>\n<p>The 174-foot-tall (53-meter) H-2A rocket lit its hydrogen-fueled LE-7A main engine and fired away from Tanegashima, heading south over the Pacific Ocean with the aid of two strap-on solid rocket boosters.<\/p>\n<p>The H-2A launcher climbed away from Tanegashima, a picturesque spaceport nestled on a rocky overlook on the Pacific Ocean, with 1.4 million pounds of thrust from its main engine and twin solid-fueled boosters.<\/p>\n<p>The strap-on boosters burned out less than two minutes after liftoff and jettisoned, and the H-2A\u2019s payload fairing jettisoned around four minutes into the mission. The first stage main engine switched off approximately six-and-a-half minutes after launch, then the first stage separated to fall into the Pacific Ocean. The upper stage\u2019s LE-5B engine, burning a mixture of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, ignited to place Japan\u2019s newest surveillance satellite into polar orbit.<\/p>\n<p>The Japan Aerospace Exploration confirmed in a statement that the Information Gathering Satellite deployed as planned from the H-2A\u2019s upper stage.<\/p>\n<p>JAXA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the H-2A rocket\u2019s prime contractor, did not provide a live webcast of Tuesday\u2019s launch. Japanese launch officials typically provide live video coverage of space launches, but not for missions carrying the country\u2019s spy satellites.<\/p>\n<p>The satellite launched Tuesday, named IGS Radar 6, carries a synthetic aperture radar imaging payload capable of resolving objects on the ground day and night, regardless of weather conditions.<\/p>\n<p>The spacecraft\u2019s specifications, including its imaging performance, are kept secret by the Japanese government. But the government has acknowledged the satellite will join a fleet of Information Gathering Satellites operated by the&nbsp;Cabinet Satellite Intelligence Center, which reports directly to the Japanese government\u2019s executive leadership.<\/p>\n<p>The IGS Radar 6 satellite is Japan\u2019s seventh radar reconnaissance satellite. The radar observers operate in tandem with electro-optical surveillance satellites, which offer better resolution, but only when their imaging targets have clear skies overhead.<\/p>\n<p>Japan started its spy satellite program in 1998 after a North Korean missile test flew over Japanese territory.<\/p>\n<p>Tuesday\u2019s launch was delayed 24 hours from Monday to allow inclement weather to move away from the Tanegahima launch site.<\/p>\n<p><b><i>Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u3068\u308a\u3042\u3048\u305a\u30b5\u30d6\u30ab\u30e1\u30e9\u306e\u6620\u50cf\u304b\u3089\u3002H-IIA F39\u6253\u3061\u4e0a\u3052\u3002 pic.twitter.com\/JBbj5M66tS \u2014 \u67f4\u7530\u5b54\u660e (@koumeiShibata) June 12, 2018 An all-weather spy satellite for the Japanese government launched Tuesday on top of an H-2A rocket, extending the country\u2019s surveillance reach with coverage of North Korea and other strategic locations worldwide. The radar-equipped reconnaissance craft lifted off at 0420 GMT (12:20 a.m. EDT) Tuesday from the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[159,1662,2930,2356,2931,377,877,25],"class_list":["post-13740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-earth-observation","tag-h-2a","tag-h-2a-f39","tag-igs","tag-igs-radar-6","tag-japan","tag-jaxa","tag-launch"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13740"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13740\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}